Barrels on West Marginal Way S

These are barrels.  You see them by the side of the road, as you drive up West Marginal Way S towards the 509 interchange.

You pull the car over and take a closer look.  It is indeed a pyramid of barrels, protected by chain link and barbed wire.  A mountain of barrels reaching up to the clouds.  They shine in the sun like the golden relics of a forgotten civilization of barrel-based pyramid builders.

Next to the mountain, another mountain.  This one is made of rainbow colors, ultraviolet red to cobalt blue.

You wonder what obscure purpose these monuments might serve.  You wonder if every so often somebody requires a colorful barrel and, like a modern day Prometheus, ascends the mountain to steal one from under the watchful eye of the very gods of hydrocarbon containment.

You wonder who the first pyramid builder was, and why he gave us this Stonehenge of barrels. You wonder whether the edifice is now complete, or whether every so often newly emptied containers are added to the top. Very carefully, of course, so as to avoid disturbing the very foundations of the world. No worse end can you imagine than to die in a barrel avalanche.

You wonder whether the pyramids will endure.  You envision rains falling unopposed for ten thousand years, as invasive blackberry fights the rust, the cockroaches, and the very fading of the sun to claim the soul and minerals of the barrel mountain.

You wonder if perhaps it might not be storage, but art.

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